


Sidelined

by auroradream, Melesmeles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 03, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collaboration, Community: pod-together, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Team Human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroradream/pseuds/auroradream, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melesmeles/pseuds/Melesmeles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first day of Junior year for Stiles isn’t just spent going over course syllabi, but also finding out that while he had been shipped off to family for the summer, that the werewolves in town had an Alpha pack to deal with.  Heavily frustrated, Team Human figure it’s long past time that they start taking their own safety into their hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sidelined

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Pod_together 2013 challenge](http://pod-together.dreamwidth.org/), read by [Melesmeles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Melesmeles). This was my first pod_together challenge and I really did enjoy the whole processes. We started off figuring out our favorite characters and character moments and went from there. Many thanks for being able to work on this when life got you down, girl. 
> 
> Beta by [house_of_lantis](http://archiveofourown.com/users/house_of_lantis).
> 
> But most of all, thanks to paraka and klb for being amazing mods. You both have been such a great support and made the challenges of this project not so scary.

[MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/sidelined-melesmeles,%20auroradream.mp3)  
[M4B](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/sidelined-melesmeles,%20auroradream.m4b)

Surprisingly it was the one two punch of Allison and Lydia that cornered him the first day back from summer vacation in halls between classes.  They were women on a mission, and apparently Stiles was that mission—or at least it was to pull him into an unused classroom.  Allison locked the door while Lydia stood staring at Stiles, her arms crossed and an unimpressed look on her face while she looked him up and down.

“Um, ladies.”

Lydia clucked her tongue and Allison came to stand next to her in what looked like support.  “Tell us what you know about what happened with the Alpha pack over the summer,” Lydia demanded.

“What?” Stiles flailed slightly, his backpack sliding from off his shoulder.  “Alpha pack?  What Alpha pack?  There was an Alpha pack?  How would that even work?”

“Focus!” Lydia snapped.  “Yes, there was an Alpha pack that came to Beacon Hills over the summer.  They kidnapped Boyd and Erica.  Erica was _killed_.  Somehow Derek, Isaac, and Scott saved Boyd, defeated the Alphas and now Derek’s younger sister, Cora, is around.  Obviously you were kept in the loop as much as we were.” The expression on her face was just short of murderous and Stiles couldn’t help but be a little turned on by it, turned on and scared, well, leaning a little closer to scared as determination entered the emotional byplay.

“Wait,” Stiles frowned, irritation starting to blow past his earlier confusion.   “If neither of you were around either, how did you find out?”

There was a weird grimace that crossed Allison’s face just before she spoke.  “Scott came to tell my father.  Derek apparently wanted him to let my dad know so that if word somehow got back to him about it, he wouldn’t feel blindsided.”

“One, since when has Sourwolf thought ahead enough to warn your father about things?  Two, how did he even get the idea to warn your father?  And three, since when have Derek and Scott been working together?  And why didn’t Scott tell me?” 

The last question was muttered more to himself but he did notice Lydia’s eyebrows raise at hearing him.

“It certainly does show a certain amount of foresight that Derek hasn’t shown in the past, but who knows, maybe he turned into a real boy over the summer.”  Lydia perched herself on a desk, her knees crossed and flashing smooth thigh to distract Stiles for a moment.

He had to physically shake his head and shrug at both Lydia’s pursed lips of mild distain and Allison’s knowing smile.

“What, I’m a 17 year- old virgin surrounded by attractive people.”  He waved his hand as if to clear the subject.  “Regardless, the fact that our motley crew of werewolves were actually able to take care of this Alpha pack over the summer is pretty amazing.  The fact that they kept it from us, is a bit more suspect though.  Did you get anything from Scott about it?”

Allison shrugged, “He just mumbled something about giving me my space and left.  I mean, Dad and I were in France, but I would have expected you to be in the thick of things, Stiles.”

“Yeah, well, my dad packed me up to go spend the summer with my aunt and uncle in Ohio to quote unquote ‘Get my head back on straight and to get away from Scott for a bit.’” Stiles shrugged.  “Scott and I didn’t really talk all that much over the summer.  He kept on breaking our Skype dates for what he said was studying and summer school, but now I can’t help but wonder if he was doing wolf stuff.”  He sat down heavily in a chair, scrubbing his hands through his now longer hair.  “This sucks.  I mean, mad props that they were able to take care of something but how are we supposed to protect ourselves if we aren’t kept in the loop?”

“Exactly,” Lydia smirked as if she had seen Prada do a particularly difficult trick she had taught her.  “Werewolves and other supernatural elements are obviously going to be part of our lives.  Even if your father has retired from hunting,” she said, nodding to Allison, “that doesn’t mean we can’t utilize his knowledge and skills to help us keep ourselves safe.  I, for one, would like to not be caught unaware anymore.”

She stood and smoothed down her skirt over her thighs, “Tonight, we’ll meet at my house and read Danny in.  He has just as much a right to know what is going on with Jackson suddenly dying, coming back to life, and then moving to London.”

Allison and Lydia left the room while Stiles was still struggling with his backpack.  “Wait, Danny, too?  I already feel my fragile ego crumbling.”

\---

“So, Alpha pack?”  Stiles leaned against the lockers next to Scott’s, an expectant look on his face, but he didn’t actually hold out much hope for a straight answer from his best friend.

Scott winced and turned beseeching eyes on Stiles.  “I didn’t want you to worry.  You had a chance at a normal summer without all the werewolf issues and you sounded really happy to be away.”

Stiles felt his words dry up for just a moment, his sudden anger burning them away, before answering.  “It was the most normal boring summer of my life that I spent worrying about your werewolf ass because we still have no clue about where the fuck Gerard’s body is and at that point I didn’t know where Boyd or Erica were either, you know.  And now I come home to find out that you not only found them, well, found Boyd alive, but Erica was killed.  Scott, Erica died!  She was my friend you know.  Don’t you think I would have liked to have known that she had died?  That I would have liked to have gone to her funeral?  Damn it, Scott, don’t you ever think things out before you do them?  Let me guess what happened this summer.

“You and Derek and Isaac came together as a pack to fight this Alpha pack, which I still don’t get how that works by the way, and decided that ‘oh look, I have awesome new werewolf friends, who cares about my best friend that I’ve effectively been ignoring for the past four months!  The best friend who I lied to about Gerard.  The best friend who I didn’t look for when he had been taken and beaten up after the best fucking lacrosse game he’d ever played!’” 

There was silence in the hallway with everyone staring at Stiles’s outburst. 

He flicked his eyes around them and finally settled on Scott’s thunderstruck face. 

Stiles sighed, his shoulders slumping, “Listen, that was harsh and over the top, but dude, you really hurt my feelings.  You can’t just ignore me and then expect me to be around when it’s convenient.  I think…I think I need some time off.  I’ll be there if you need me, but Scott, I need you to be there for me when I need it, too.  You’re my bro, but I think that I need some time.”

Stiles turned and hurried away, blinking the tears in his eyes away, keeping from making eye contact with anyone who was still standing around watching the two of them.  Scott’s belated “Sorry,” barely reached his ears before he turned the corner, his breath coming shorter.   

He startled slightly, when a small, feminine hand slid onto the crook of his elbow.  Lydia was at his side, matching his pace out the doors of the school.  Her head was held high, looking down her nose at anyone who glanced their way.  Allison was just outside the doors waiting for them and she put her hand through his other arm.  The two of them dragged him to Lydia’s car and pushed him into the backseat where Danny was waiting.

Danny smirked at him, “Hey.”

“Hey, Danny,” he returned, automatically, still a bit shell shocked over his fight with Scott.  “I thought we were meeting at your house, Lydia?” 

“Change in plans,” she said simply and started the car.  “Buckle up.”

Blindly he pulled his seatbelt across his body and just slumped back against the seat. 

“Your mind blown yet?

“Werewolves,” Danny nodded slowly to himself.  “Honestly, it makes a weird amount of sense.  And if it had been anyone but Lydia and Allison telling me I probably wouldn’t have believed it.” 

“Seriously, and I lived through it.”  Stiles sighed and tilted his head back, just staring at the roof of the car.  “So, Team Human, how are we going to deal with being fleshy walking targets around our super powered friends?”

“First, we’re going to learn how to defend ourselves against werewolves and then we’ll take on each thing that this town throws at us as it comes,” Allison said, turning around to look at them.  “I’m going to teach you everything I know about how Argents take down monsters.”

It wasn’t how Stiles saw his Junior year starting, but honestly, it seemed to be better than he could have hoped for.  Scott and Derek could wait until later, right now, they had to get ready.

\---

After the first Team Human survival boot camp at Lydia’s, where Allison had them running self-defense drills and Danny got an even more in depth description of the past year, Stiles found himself face down on his bed, just trying to mentally work through the past twelve hours.  He knew that things would be different this year, but this was taking the cake.  His brain and his body hurt from working in new ways and for the next two hours all he wanted to do was decompress before he tried to tackle the Physics homework that Harris—bastard was following him just to mess with him, he knew it—had already assigned. 

And of course, he wasn’t going to be able to get to it, because he heard his window sliding up. 

“Whoever it is, just speak your piece and let me be, my brain is too fried right now to deal with werewolves and their shit,” he muttered into his pillow.

The particular brand of silence that followed his statement could only belong to the Alpha extraordinaire and Stiles really didn’t want to deal with him. 

“Stiles,” Derek grumbled after a few more moments of silence.

“Sourwolf,” Stiles responded.

“I need you to look something up for me,” Derek said, his presence looming over Stiles in his bed. 

He could feel it.

“I don’t want to,” he said, angrily.  “I just spent the past few hours doing research and getting schooled in self-defense by Allison.”

He rolled over before sitting up and poking a finger in Derek’s direction, which was a lot closer than Stiles expected to be.  “Oh, and yeah, you didn’t seem to need my research skills over the summer dealing with an Alpha pack—seriously, how the fuck does that happen—so why the hell would you need me now?  Why don’t you go to your creepy uncle?”

Derek flared his nostrils in a weirdly attractive way that Stiles so was not going to think about right that second before he took a calming breath.  “Because I need _you_  to do this.  Not someone else, definitely not Peter, just you.  Please.”

Stiles sat there watching Derek, the “please” letting him know just how serious things for Derek were, and nodded slowly.  “Okay,” he said, standing and going to his computer.  He sat heavily on his computer chair and opened a browser window, turning to look up at Derek expectantly.  “Hit me big guy.”

“Thank you,” Derek said, his voice quiet and grateful.  It made Stiles blush a little, but he shoved the feeling down like he’d been doing for months, and focused on what Derek needed him to do.

Druids…huh.

**Author's Note:**

> Writer is on [tumblr](http://auroratraum.tumblr.com/) here if you like.


End file.
